Mannington Mills plans major environmental cleanup at local plant

MANNINGTON TWP. — Mannington Mills is about to embark on a significant environmental cleanup on the property of its flooring manufacturing plant here. Company officials say the project is expected to begin in December and be completed mid-year of 2010.

“We’ve accepted it as our corporate responsibility long ago. We’ve resolved to do this cleanup and have worked hand in hand with the DEP to do it right,” said Dave Kitts, VP-Environment.

The remediation project will be concentrated on three older areas at the plant. Targeted are seven former wastewater lagoons, an adjacent area where sediment dredged from the lagoons was stored in depressions in the ground and an inactive impoundment — an above-ground storage site for solids removed from wastewater treatment.

The lagoons and sediment placement area, located on the northwest part of the plant along the railroad tracks that cut through the property, were used from 1969 until 1979 to remove solids from plant discharges related to the manufacturing of flooring.

In 1979 the above-ground storage area was constructed to receive sediment from the wastewater treatment plant Mannington Mills built to replace the old lagoon system. The wastewater treatment plant and above-ground sediment storage area were used until 1985 when Mannington discontinued an older printing process in manufacturing certain lines of flooring and thus ceased the use of the wastewater treatment plant.

Plans for the cleanup have been in the works for nearly a decade. Mannington Mills, the 90-plus-year-old flooring innovator, owned by the Campbell family, began in downtown Salem in 1915 before moving to the current site which serves as a manufacturing center and corporate headquarters off the Salem-Woodstown Road. The total site now exceeds 500 acres surrounded by farmland, wetlands, and other open space.

The sediment to be removed from the lagoons is described as a white or pink material that resembles dried paint when on land, but has a gummy texture when still under water as it is in the lagoons. The layer of sediment averages four to five feet in the lagoons.

The material is not considered a hazardous waste.

In all, some 11,000 cubic yards of sediment will be removed. The material will be then relocated to the above-ground storage area where it will all be covered with a low-permeability soil cap. Native shrubs, trees and other plants will be planted around the area. Instead of trucking the excavated sediment material to a landfill, officials determined the sediment as safe to permanently store on site.

“We wanted to find a safe, viable solution on our own property,” said Kitts. “We determined effective means to resolve our issues on our property working under the very close observation of the DEP (New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection).”

The lagoons and adjacent sediment storage areas will be restored as both wetlands and a vegetated stormwater retention system. In addition to the sediment removal, approximately 3,000 cubic yards of soil and sludge in a ditch north of the lagoon area will be excavated and will be transported off-site for disposal. Off-site disposal of this material, Mannington officials say, is needed because the soil contains higher petroleum concentrations.

The actual work comes at a significant cost to the company. It will be Mannington Mills’ largest capital project in both 2009 and 2010. That will be on top of the millions spent over the past decade in the planning stages for this cleanup. Despite the downturn in the economy and building sector, Mannington decided to continue to move forward and complete the work.

According to Kitts, the decision is a reflection of Mannington Mills’ corporate policy on protecting the environment: Actions Speak.

“Our environmental and corporate responsibilities cast a very wide net,” said Betsy Amoroso, Director of Corporate Communications for Mannington. “We are very aware of the sensitive ecological area we are located in. We are proactive. We took the initiative to move ahead with this project.”

The company has five firms interested in doing the work. Bids are being reviewed and expect to be awarded shortly.

Mannington officials have outlined the cleanup plans with Mannington Mills employees, county and local officials, and neighbors of the site. The company also posted a sign at the site and provided details about the remediation in a display advertisement in the Sunbeam on Oct. 30.